Parents Corner

Listen at the puzzle table sometime. This goes here. No... wait. Where’s the blue one? I’m mad at this one ’cause I can’t put it on. That isn’t weird. That isn’t a disorder. That’s a young brain borrowing speech to steer itself through something hard. Developmental people call it private speech. Parents call it talking to yourself. Either way, it’s often short, concrete, and tied to the task or the feeling in front of them. Affirmations can have a place — Zen 4 Little Ones us

Fear in childhood is often ordinary. That sentence can feel like a relief or like a brush-off, depending on the night you’re having. Many fears at this age are common for where kids are, tied to their bodies and their situations. Dark room. Loud dog. New doorway. Tummy that goes tight before swim class. They are not a character flaw. They are not automatically an anxiety disorder. They also aren’t something to ignore until they vanish, or to laugh off, or to treat with an adu

Warmth and inflation are different. Most parents know it in their bones. More praise doesn’t automatically mean more confidence. Sometimes a big “You’re amazing!” lands well. Or maybe confidence grows somewhere quieter: from trying something, belonging to someone, and finding a workable next move when the first one fails. Praise isn’t the enemy. Empty praise and trait praise are shaky tools. Specific, sincere, process-linked recognition noticing what they did, what strategy h

You know the moment. Tower down. Face crumpled. Or the sudden stillness that means something landed wrong, and they can’t say what yet. Your body wants to fix it, cheer them up, offer a snack, a joke, a distraction that works for your nervous system. That’s human. You’re also the person they look at to find out what feelings are for. Feelings carry information. Not a verdict on your parenting. Not a defect in the child. Data. Something happened. Something mattered. The job, o